21 Day Bloods

As dear old AF did make her appearance yesterday (boo, hiss!), I am due to have 21 day bloods taken this cycle. As some of you know, I have only very vaguely regular cycles, in that they range between 26 days and 32 days with no real rhyme or reason. I have been reading up on the blood tests on the internet and noticed it said that should you not come on your period within 7 days after having blood test, then the test had to be repeated the following cycle.

Is this what everyone else was led to believe too? Because if so, it will be like playing Russian roulette because I think the last time I had a nice, neat 28 day cycle was about 7 months ago.

Will phone my doctors, but they are closed today for a training session

As dear old AF did make her appearance yesterday (boo, hiss!), I am due to have 21 day bloods taken this cycle. As some of you know, I have only very vaguely regular cycles, in that they range between 26 days and 32 days with no real rhyme or reason. I have been reading up on the blood tests on the internet and noticed it said that should you not come on your period within 7 days after having blood test, then the test had to be repeated the following cycle.

Is this what everyone else was led to believe too? Because if so, it will be like playing Russian roulette because I think the last time I had a nice, neat 28 day cycle was about 7 months ago.

Will phone my doctors, but they are closed today for a training session

Hi Spider
The dates are picked to show up whether the body chemicals are reacting appropriately at that stage in the cycle (as I'm sure you know), but everybody is slightly different and there is a margin for error as a result. I have a 25-26 day cycle, but have still had 'day 21' bloods and started IVF treatments on day 21 as they want you to be in the 'dropping off' phase between ovulation and menstruation. I was told that only if cycles were less than 22 days would they look at using different dates.
That said do not rule out getting tested this month. I had one set of bloods done on day 22 (as 21 was a Sunday) and one set done on day 20 (as 21 was a Sat) and aside from the changes they were expecting to see it made very little difference to the other figures. If your cycle is slightly shorter day 20 might be more accurate to the 'ideal' anyway. My fertility docs said day 3 tests are really day 2-5 tests and day 21 are day 19-23 in terms of getting an accurate result.
Hope you get good news.

Ah, so pleased I found this!! Been crying most of the afternoon as my GP wants to take 21 day bloods, despite my cycle ranging from 28 to 54 days! I had gone in to ask for PCOS tests, but i'll see how this goes. I really don't understand what they hope to learn from the test, chances are I won't be ovulating!
But, i'm more pleased that other people will take time off school too, my test is the first Tuesday and I have been stressing, won't get in until after break time and feel guilty!

Thanks Lila!
I've calmed down a bit now & am feeling much better, think I just needed to cry & flap for a couple of days.
Test is booked for Tuesday (school is going to love that!) & I had my coil removed yesterday, so it feels like things are moving forward, just oh-so-slowly!

Well I had my blood results back and the GP said that they measured 26, so slightly below the ideal of 30. Not really a negative but certainly not a positive, just rather unconclusive! Anyway, he wants me to repeat the test next month.

I guess that also confirms that I am out this month - presumably if I was pregnant the progesterone level would be higher, so I can look at this as an early answer.